Al-Ghazali on the Representative Language of Revelation

Abstract

Al-Ghazali, as one of the greatest thinkers of the Islamic world, has proposed notable views on religious language. He has addressed the language of revelation according to ontological and epistemological bases and theological-mystical approaches. His most important work in this subject is Jawaher-al-Koran. In this book, which pertains to the period of his engagement with mysticism, al-Ghazali has comprehensively addressed the esoteric understanding of the Qur’an. Based on his notion of revelation and his theory of the conformity of different worlds, he tries to explain how and by which criteria the revelation descends, and also the way the entities of the spiritual world are represented in the mundane world. He, then, presents the way through which mystics can attain the purposes of revelation. This view which should be named the representative language of revelation theory is not similar to any of the theories of other philosophers of religion.

Keywords

• revelation
• esoteric understanding of the qur’an
• representative language of religion
• al-ghazali